Intermodal providers

The Blue Ridge Connector will have 18,000 feet of working track and an annual lift capacity of up to 200,000 containers while providing shippers with an all-rail service from Savannah.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District says it will create rules to reduce emissions at Southern California rail yards because Union Pacific insists on including public financing as a precondition for participating in the more collaborative MOU process.

The Class I railroad sees an opportunity to tap growth at the Gulf Coast’s busiest port with new intermodal lanes, while expanding its inland reach from Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Draft legislation would also seek to codify that rail demurrage fees be billed to the ocean carrier, which would then pass along the charge to the responsible shipper or BCO. .

While the moves are considered more of a rejuvenation than a renaissance, railroads are doing a more effective job juggling the interests of investors while providing new products to serve shippers.

Shippers saved nearly 26% using domestic intermodal instead of highway options in the third quarter, approximately in line with long-term averages.

The largest US domestic intermodal provider will no longer partner with CPKC on cross-border loads destined for the Midwest and West Coast, in the latest shifting of alliances on new services between Mexico and the US.

The new north-south service will begin next week with trial runs transporting perishable goods out of Latin America to Chicago.

The premium service run by the long-time partners aims to capture so-called just-in-time cargo that has historically been shipped via truck.

Once fully complete by 2025, the current expansion project would allow the port to handle 1.1 million TEUs annually, up from 650,000 TEUs.

Hub Group said its intermodal business trailed competitors in the third quarter despite a mini-peak that developed in Southern California in September.

Despite reporting lackluster third-quarter financial results, the intermodal service provider is cautiously optimistic that the worst of the US freight recession is in the past.

It appears Mexico is beginning to fulfill its growth potential for domestic intermodal, with asset-based carriers ramping up their activity within the country and in the cross-border market, writes analyst Larry Gross.

Tri-Cities Intermodal said it will revive plans to refurbish a cold storage warehouse and rail ramp served by Union Pacific’s intermodal service.

The tone of the recent event was “very dark,” writes analyst Ted Prince, who says the combination of a good economy but low volumes has created widespread confusion in the intermodal sector.

Transit times are still in flux, but UP believes the service will take seven to eight days to Atlanta and an additional one or two days to Charlotte and South Florida.

If history is any indication, it is unlikely intermodal providers will be able to implement a rate increase in 2024 contracts until the trucking market rebounds.

 The Class I railroad said it and Florida East Coast Railway are looking to take more trucks off the road with the additional intermodal service offering.

A muted peak and post-peak season for imports and intermodal activity has shippers and service providers eyeing a freight rebound no earlier than late 2024.

The division of BNSF Logistics between BNSF Railway and J.B. Hunt is aimed at helping to improve service to joint customers at a time when freight demand is weak.

Railroads told the IANA conference they have made important operational changes that will translate into reliable service when demand picks up, but some logistics companies are not convinced.

If the looming strike against the “big three” US automakers comes to pass, then domestic intermodal will surely take another big hit in an environment where there are certainly more downside risks than upside potential for the rest of 2023, writes analyst Larry Gross.

The intermodal provider’s CEO believes there will be a small peak season between now and early November despite data from the US Surface Transportation Board showing volumes are down compared with last year.

Since new services from CPKC and CN were launched in May, intermodal volume out of Mexico has surged more than 30% year over year through the end of July.

Schneider believes once demand picks up for rail transportation, the intermodal industry can return to pre-pandemic levels of productivity for containers.

Norfolk Southern’s launch of an appointment system for import boxes in Memphis has not been smooth, but the railroad hopes to learn from the problems to make the October rollout in Atlanta better.

Regardless of where demand for intermodal and truckload freight transport moves over the coming months, the industry holds the key to its destiny in its own hands, writes analyst Larry Gross. 

CN said it will take up to eight weeks to clear the cargo backlog at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert as the industry waits to see if ILWU Canada’s rank and file will accept terms of the tentative deal reached last week.

That mismatch between container supply and demand has forced intermodal providers to stack boxes, with J.B. Hunt saying it parked about 18% of its container fleet in the first half of the year.

The link would offer an alternative to the Meridian Speedway that pre-merger Kansas City Southern and Norfolk Southern Railway have partnered on since 2006.

While demand for domestic rail freight in the UK grows, the network’s ability to handle the more complex smaller shipments has been criticized by cargo owners.

Tiger Cool Express was an innovator in the intermodal industry, one of the first to fully embrace containerized reefer intermodal when it began ramping up operations in late 2013.

Norfolk Southern is a step closer to consolidating its Michigan intermodal business at one site after receiving a grant from the state for improvements at the Livernois yard.

The railroad is reducing demurrage fees and restoring additional free time that was eliminated in the past two years as international intermodal volumes have fallen sharply from East Coast ports.

Union Pacific’s launch of direct intermodal service from Houston comes two weeks after competitor BNSF announced it would begin a new service from the port’s Barbours Cut marine terminal.

As shippers scramble to shed unwanted inventory, more than 80% responding to a Journal of Commerce survey reported that they’ve kept 53-foot domestic containers for too long, incurring detention fees.

A “perfect storm” of poor schedule reliability, persistently high electricity prices, weak demand and cheaper diesel for trucking continues to undermine Europe’s rail-dominated combined transport sector.

Customers were largely satisfied with intermodal service in early 2023, citing CSX and J. B. Hunt as the top overall providers in North America, according to a Journal of Commerce biannual survey.

The railroad will start a twice-weekly service to Dallas and once-weekly service to Denver, but no ocean carrier as yet is offering inland moves from Houston.

One might expect that Western Canadian ports have benefited from cargo bound for the US Midwest being diverted from the US West Coast to avoid potential labor disruption, but that has not been the case, notes analyst Larry Gross.